contextmqpfandomcom-20200213-history
User Interface Tutorial
Welcome to the User Interface Tutorial This tutorials will explain every slider, button, and input box on the user interface. When you've finished reading this you will be well on your way to creating great animations. Below is a layout of the UI and a description of what everything is for. There is also step by step instructions on how to create your very own animations. The User Interface Getting Started 1. A good place to start is with a data set. Click on the Browse button in the upper left hand corner and find your data set, then click OK. 2. Then select an appropriate map to animate your data set upon, such as a world map or a map of a city or country, using the Browse button on the left. If the map is smaller than 700x700 it will be displayed on the top of the screen as a preview. If the map is larger than that it will not be displayed but is is still avaliable to use, and the finished animation will be displayed on it. 4. Then adjust the longitude and lattitude settings to match the size of the map. It is important to note that longitudes and latitudes must be in decimal format, instead of hours, minutes and seconds. It is also important to note that North and East values are positive and South and West values are negative. The default values are -90.0 to 90.0 latitude and -180.0 to 180.0 which is the entire Earth. 5. Next select a starting and ending time for the data set you've supplied. This time can be in years or days, it depends on the data. For example if the data spanned from 1999 to 2010 then the boxes should contain 1999 2010. 6. Beneath the browse button on the right are two fields to control the speed of the animation. Animation Speed is how many milliseconds to pause between each frame of the animation. Time Increments is how fast the animation is played back. 7. Skipping closer to the bottom there are two combo boxes labeled Select Field. This will help determine what the finished location looks like. The box on the right determines which factor the animation pick to base the size of the points, lines or areas on. The box on the right will determine which colors they are represented. For example, when animating poputations of cities. If the size of the points should represent population density, then the combo box on the right should be mapped to population density. But if the size of the points should reflect total population then the combo box on the right should be total population. 8. If you want all the points, lines or areas to be the same size or the same color. Then simply change the Select Size or Select Color '''to '''Static. 9. To determine what color the animation should be, adjust the color sliders and then click Primary Color '''or '''Secondary Color. Note: Secondary colors are only displalyed if Select Color is set to Gradient. Then adjust the sliders beneath to set the level of gradience. Higher values will be mapped to the primary color and lower values will be mapped to the secondary color. 10. Similarly adjust the size of the point, line, area representation by sliding the sliders. Then set boundaries in the text field for the highest and lowest a point, line, or area can be. Note: Just like with colors, only the Max Size slider will be used, if the Select Size '''is set to '''Static. 11. In the middle of the form on the left there is Save .GIF File '''should be used to specify a new .gif file to create the animation. This can be a pre-existing .gif file to overwrite, or a new .gif file to create. This field can be specified, or left blank, if still frames are desired. 12. Beneath the size sliders is an '''Opacity '''slider. This can be used to make the points, lines, or areas more see-through, which is helpful for data tightly spaced, or overlapping. 12. Beneath that there is '''Frame Location '''which is empty location to store still frames of the animation. This should be an empty folder, because depending on the data set or other specifications could be many frames. The program will automatically number the frames so just provide a name. For example, a data set about Russian population from 1990 to 2000 could be called Russia. The program would automatically create frames called, Russia1990, Russia1991, Russia1992....Russia2000, in the desired location. 13. The '''Save button should be used only when animating multiple data sets. For every data set or configuration type, click Save and then adjust sliders or field for another one. It is not necessary to save the final configuration, as it is automatically included in the animation. 14. The bottom right corner holds the final two buttons, '''Picture Frames '''will create a series of still frames in the pre-specified location. '''Make .GIF File '''will create an animation.